Late Season Powderhound Alert!!!

For the past couple of weeks, I have touting the fact that the overall pattern was set up for action in terms of snow events. Unfortunately the northwesterly flow of cold air has been TOO strong at times, and we have missed out on a couple of events that have stayed too far to the south to bring appreciable snow to the mountains of the Northeast.

There have been several Alberta Clippers that have come zipping through in the northern branch of the jet stream…those systems are almost always moisture-starved…so snowfall amounts have been light and pretty much confined to the far northern mountains. That is where you will find some packed powder as this week gets underway.

The quick warm-up on Saturday converted much of the region’s surface snow to a more moist granular consistency. Thankfully the spike in temperatures only last one day, so trail counts were not adversely affected.

Now, if you long for a few more days on (or “in”) dry, midwinter snow, it sure looks like help is on the way. It looks as though a storm system will get going in the Midwest later on Tuesday before tracking east-northeastward through the northern mid-Atlantic region Wednesday. From there it will turn more northeasterly as it heads offshore south of Long Island and spins up into the Gulf of Maine on its’ way to the Maritimes. That’s a nice track for substantial snow over the interior Northeast.

Now, this week will get off to a milder than normal start, which might make you wonder if it will be cold enough for snow when the storm comes along. On Tuesday, with the clockwise flow around a large area of high pressure parked over western Ontario providing the push, a cold front will move southward through New York and New England. It will set off some light mountain snow as it does, with the boundary eventually coming to a halt south of Long Island and across the mid-Atlantic states.

It is along this thermal ribbon that low pressure will track as it approaches the coast, and by the time it throws moisture into the mountains of New York and New England, enough cold air will have been fed into the path of the storm to bring crystals to the hills and not raindrops. In coastal sections, it looks like the event will start with rain, but as the storm intensifies, northeast winds will drag cold air southward, and this storm will end as accumulating snow from southern New England as far south as Philadelphia or so.

How much snow is this storm capable of producing? Well, if everything falls into place and the track is not TOO far south once again (less of a threat this time around), the resorts from the Catskills northeastward to the mountains of Maine will be looking at a double digit snowfall. That would set things up for a nice powder day on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday Snow Forecast via Weather.com

It will be quite cold for March for a couple of days after the passage of the storm, which will sustain the dry surface snow into next weekend. While the mid-Atlantic region will turn milder than normal again late next weekend and on St. Patrick’s Day, it looks as though northern branch disturbances will continue to move along the U.S./Canadian border at that time, generating some light mountain snow and reinforcing the cold air mass to sustain nice conditions.

And guess what…I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we were dealing with another significant storm threat in the middle of next week…this pattern is that loaded! Further down the road, it looks colder than normal overall through much, if not all of this month, which will provide skiers and riders with many more opportunities to get out and do some sliding.

Here are some upcoming special events at the resorts that might interest you: